The latest revenue figures may not look good on paper for Wind Creek Bethlehem, but it’s something the casino in the city’s South Side has been preparing for.

According to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, slot machine and table game revenues for Wind Creek have been steadily dropping since the spring. For August, the board reported that Wind Creek had revenue of $37.5 million, a year-over-year decline of nearly 25% from $50 million.

What does that mean for the Bethlehem community and the Lehigh Valley? Fewer people playing blackjack, craps or roulette could mean less revenue for some projects and nonprofits that receive Wind Creek money.

The drop in funds came after Resorts World Casino in New York City opened its expanded table games offerings in April. In recent years, dozens of buses would make daily trips to Wind Creek from Asian American areas of Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan’s Chinatown and other places in the New York region.

Now those clients can simply go to Queens, near John F. Kennedy International Airport, to play table games and slots.

“New York has historically been an important market for Wind Creek Bethlehem, particularly for our table games business, so we fully expected increased competition as gaming options became available closer to those customers,” Wind Creek spokesperson Julia Corwin said in a statement to The Morning Call.

“Our focus has been on continuing to strengthen Wind Creek Bethlehem as a destination and ensuring we are evolving along with the competitive landscape,” she said. “We remain committed to investing in the property and delivering the level of gaming, hospitality and entertainment experience our guests have come to expect from Wind Creek Bethlehem.

“We remain confident in the property, our team and our long-term position in the market,” Corwin said.

To keep ahead of its competition, Wind Creek was upgrading its facilities with the addition of meeting and convention space along with a spa in 2023. It also nearly doubled the number of hotel rooms.

David G. Schwartz, a gaming historian at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, said adding the amenities was a good strategic move for Wind Creek.

“Adding more nongaming amenities is a good idea, because it gives customers a reason to drive past other gambling options that are closer,” Schwartz said. “This is the model that helped Las Vegas casinos weather increased competition over the past 40 years. When a casino can no longer appeal to convenience, it can turn itself into a destination.”

Crunching the numbers

In August, Wind Creek’s table games revenue slipped nearly 50% year-over-year, from $22.9 million to $11.6 million. Slot machine revenue was relatively flat at $24.5 million, down 1.1% from the previous August.

Brian Carr, who led the casino between 2017 and 2020 and oversaw the transition in ownership from Las Vegas Sands to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, said, “August may be one month of data, but June through August is starting to look like a trend we have to pay attention to.”

Since June, Wind Creek’s table-game revenue is down $27.7 million year over year.

“Wind Creek’s table-game performance had already been trending lower during the first part of 2026,” said Carr, president and founder of BRC Consulting in Allentown. “The timing is particularly interesting given the emergence of Resorts World NYC as a major gaming competitor in the broader regional market.

“While the data does not establish causation, the timing and magnitude of Wind Creek’s table-game decline makes the competitive landscape worth watching closely.”

Carr found the slots data intriguing as it has remained steady this year, but “that stability in slots, however, has done little to offset the deterioration in table games,” he said.

It’s not just Wind Creek, Carr added. The other main casinos in the eastern part of the state, Parx in Bucks County and Rivers Philadelphia, have also seen declines or sluggish growth.

“The concentration becomes even clearer when looking at the dollar changes,” Carr said. “Wind Creek and Parx alone accounted for approximately $17 million of the $20.6 million market decline. Rivers Philadelphia contributed another $2.2 million of the decline. Together, those three properties accounted for more than 95% of the total year-over-year decline in the Eastern Pennsylvania market.”

He said data from June, July and August shows there is a clearer picture of that changing competitive landscape.

Still, the gaming control board report found that Parx and Wind Creek remained the top two casinos in the state for slots and table games despite the declines. Of the 18 casinos in the state, the top earner was Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course in Dauphin County, which had revenue of $109.5 million. Of that total, $95 million came from internet games, which is a major segment for Berks County owner Penn Entertainment.

“The result is a significant shift in Wind Creek’s overall revenue profile,” Carr said. “The property is not experiencing a broad-based collapse across both gaming segments. Instead, the decline is overwhelmingly concentrated in table games. That distinction is important when trying to understand what is happening in the market.”

Local impact

The decline in revenue is not expected to have a major impact on Bethlehem and Allentown, which receive annual host fees of $8 million and $2 million, respectively.

Bethlehem Business Administrator Eric Evans said the city receives a set $2 million a quarter from Wind Creek for the host fee and an additional percentage of slots and table games revenue.

He said the city is limited to about 1% to 2% for those games, a difference of thousands to a few hundred thousand dollars, because the variable percentage makes up a small fraction of overall payments.

“The way the law is structured, it’s a limited impact,” Evans said. “With the swing of the month-to-month or year-to-year, it’s pretty stable.”

Evans said Wind Creek has been communicating with the city since it took over the casino in 2019 that it may face increased competition in the future.

“Even in our very first meetings with them, they talked immediately about the importance of building out and distinguishing themselves as a destination,” Evans said. “They’ve been very good partners for us. They’re very good community partners in what they do, and of course, the host fee is very important to us.”

ArtsQuest, which has been a close partner with the casino in developing the SteelStacks arts and entertainment district since it was the Sands, doesn’t expect any changes. It said the partnership with Wind Creek includes the sponsoring a stage at Musikfest and participation in other programs through the years.

“We’re incredibly appreciative of Wind Creek’s long-standing partnership and its continued investment in ArtsQuest and the broader community,” an ArtsQuest spokesperson said. “At this time, we have no indication that the recently reported changes in Wind Creek Bethlehem’s revenue will have an impact on ArtsQuest’s funding or programming.”

Carr said the next several months will be particularly interesting.

“Can Wind Creek recapture some of the lost table-game volume, or does the property settle into a new range of approximately $10 million-12 million per month in table-game win?” he said.

“If the latter becomes the new normal, the implications extend well beyond Wind Creek. It would represent a meaningful shift in the competitive balance of the Eastern Pennsylvania casino market and raise an even bigger question about how the region is responding to an increasingly competitive gaming environment.”

Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.